


dead weight

by impossibletruths



Category: The Magicians (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Haircuts, M/M, Post-Season/Series 04
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-31
Updated: 2019-10-31
Packaged: 2021-01-15 18:35:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,889
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21257777
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/impossibletruths/pseuds/impossibletruths
Summary: Quentin shows up at his door with a pair of scissors and a fluttering, bitten-lip anxiety he grew out of a year and a lifetime ago.“Um,” he says. “Do you think you could cut my hair?”Eliot says, “What?”–Quentin’s in need of a change, and Eliot––in this particular instance––sort of knows what he’s doing.





	dead weight

Quentin shows up at his door with a pair of scissors and a fluttering, bitten-lip anxiety he grew out of a year and a lifetime ago.

“Um,” he says. “Do you think you could cut my hair?”

Eliot says, “What?”

His sweatshirt is new, a size too big and heavy for the season. Someone’s taken him shopping recently. Julia, probably. She’s been on a kick lately, doing things for Q. New clothes, new therapist, new attention to meal planning and structured social time. Eliot’s pretty sure it’s an apology, but no one will tell him what exactly it’s an apology for.

Given everything that’s happened since Blackspire, he can’t exactly blame them.

“It’s just, uh.” Quentin tugs at the lock hanging in his eyes. It’s an awkward length, falling in his face but not yet as long as it was when Eliot first met him, wide-eyed and so fucking _young_, Jesus they were so young. “It’s kind of. Long.”

“I thought you were growing it out.”

“Yeah,” he says, and huffs something in the realm of a laugh, rattling-dry. “So did I.”

“Are you, um.” It didn’t used to be this difficult to talk to him, he’s pretty sure. “Are you sure you want me to do it?”

Quentin looks at him and there’s something on his face, crooked and brittle, and Eliot feels wrong-footed, mostly. Not sure where he’s allowed to step with the cloud of What This Body Did When He Wasn’t The One Driving It looming over them. He starts to say something––he doesn’t know what, anything to paper over all the cracks, but––

“I don’t,” Quentin says, startlingly sharp, and Eliot’s mouth snaps shut. Anxiety practically rolls off him, a low, staticky discomfort that sets Eliot’s teeth on edge. He tries not to flinch. “Um. Sorry. It’s just, really long and I can’t–– focus, and I don’t really want to, like. Go to a barber, right now, it’s too––” _Much,_ he doesn’t say, but Eliot can fill it in; would have filled it in even without the admission. He knows Quentin well enough for that. “I just. I thought you might. Know how to.”

He stops talking as suddenly as he started, jaw jutting out as he clenches his teeth, like he’s braced for something. Refusal, maybe. Eliot to redraw the too-broad boundary lines between them. But he’s here anyway, doing what Eliot’s never figured out how to do, the whole _asking for help_ thing, and Eliot isn’t going to say no. It’s like, precedent or something; he wants to be someone Quentin can come to. He wants to be not-the-Monster. He wants to be himself; he wants them to look at him like he's himself.

“Well,” he says, and has to wet his lips to get the words out right, light and fake, sort of, even if he doesn’t want it to be fake, he just wants it to be easy, why can’t one fucking thing be _easy_. “You’d be right.”

Quentin stares at him. “Okay. That’s. Okay.”

He doesn’t flinch when Eliot steps up to him––that stopped after the first week––but his eyes still dart to his hands and back again, make Eliot wonder what they did, how they hurt––

He isn’t thinking about that. It’s one of the things he promised Margo, before she left, _Stop torturing yourself, El,_ and he’s. Trying. It’s hard. He’s so good at it, see, twisting the knife. Especially when it comes to Q.

Still, Quentin doesn’t protest when Eliot takes the shears from his hand. “This will be easier in the kitchen,” he decides, because someone should decide something, generally speaking, and Quentin’s already decided to _ask_ so Eliot can do the rest, probably. And the kitchen is big, and space has been–– something of a problem, personally, these past few weeks.

“How short do you want it?” he asks as they switch rooms, something to fill the space, to span it. He heard a story, once, a Fillorian fairytale––he thinks, anyway; it had that Fillorian ring to it, literal things being figurative and figurative things being literal––about two sisters who talked themselves a bridge between worlds and, well, it can’t hurt to try.

“Short,” says Quentin, and he sits in the tall chair from the breakfast counter that Eliot pulls out for him, fingers plucking at the cuffs of his overlong sleeves. “I don’t–– It’s in my face and I can’t––”

“Okay,” Eliot says steadily, even though it makes something twist, sort of, in his chest. It’s not his choice, anyway, or his hair, he just. Likes it, is all, the way it frames his face, how he tucks it behind his ears when he gets animated. The little bun he’s fond of, and the confidence that goes with it.

But Quentin asked, and he’s saying yes. Precedent, etc. He clears his throat. “Are you going to be okay if I go get a few things?”

Quentin hunches against the question, but he nods too, so Eliot makes a quick trip to the bathroom, comes back with a clean comb and a towel for his shoulders and a razor for the bits in the back, because Eliot is nothing if not a consummate professional in all his endeavors and if he’s going to cut Q’s hair he’s going to do it right.

“Sit up for me?” He waits for Q to straighten before he fits the towel around his shoulders, movements choreographed carefully, watching for any sign of discomfort, the slightest flinch, the briefest wince. Nothing comes, though; he just looks tired, that hazy, wiped-out look he wears when whatever’s inside is loud enough to blot out whatever’s outside.

“Short,” Eliot says, just to be sure.

“Yeah,” Quentin says. And then, much quieter, “Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me yet,” Eliot tells him, and that’s easier. Familiar ground. Still false, but–– He’s trying, okay? “You could end up looking like Penny.”

“You wouldn’t,” Quentin says, not enough inflection to tell if he means it or just hopes it.

“That’s what you think.”

Quentin doesn’t say anything then, so Eliot lets it go. There’s a song stuck in his head he hums under his breath, and when he realizes what it is he laughs, equally huffing and humorless, comb working through the odd tangle. Quentin’s hair care routine is about as far from Eliot’s as it’s possible to get while still, say, washing one’s hair. Usually. It’s a little greasy today, but that’s alright, makes it easier to work with. He parts it neatly, brushes some of it out of Quentin’s face. To see what he’s working with, mostly, and also because Quentin has a lovely face, and Eliot likes seeing it.

“About here?” he asks, even though it’s not really a question, just another chance for Quentin to be sure of his choice. There’s no mirror, so he presses his fingers against the line he’s thinking, leaving enough length to it that he’s in no danger of looking Penny-like. Quentin sighs at the touch, tension bleeding away from him like ink through water.

“Yeah,” he says, voice rough, and his eyes close when he nods. “That’s good.”

A lump rises in Eliot’s throat, and he resists the urge to run the pad of his thumb along the line of his cheekbone, to promise everything will be okay. It’s not a promise he can make, anyway, and he's trying this thing where he doesn't lie to Q. He draws his hand back, adjusts the towel. Trades comb for shears.

The scissors are metal-cold against his fingers, and Quentin flinches at the first snip when they brush against the back of his neck.

“Sorry.” He keeps his eyes fixed on his work, on the tiny, fine hairs standing on end as Quentin shivers. Trimmed locks fall to the floor below as he works, dusting the tile underfoot like snow.

“‘S alright,” Quentin mumbles, head tipped down so Eliot can see what he’s doing. “Just cold.”

“I know.” And then, “Sorry,” again, unbidden, coaxing Quentin’s head to the side so he can get to the awkward bit behind one ear.

“It’s alright," he repeats. "I really, um. Appreciate it.”

“My pleasure.” It’s embarrassing, almost, how much me means that. “Margo will be sorry she missed it.”

Will she? Probably. Her stake in Quentin’s wellbeing is easily as large as his own, no matter how differently they show it. She’d offer commentary, if she were here, he thinks. Something to fill the space. Break the tension. She’s always so good with that, Margo. He’d thought he was good with that too, but that was. Before.

“Jules too,” Quentin offers, delayed. The scissors touch against his ear and he shivers. Eliot waits for him to still before he continues brushing loose hair off his shoulder. “She’s wanted to do this for–– I don’t know. Ages.” 

“Has it always been long?”

“Yeah. Or. Since high school.” His hands disappear into the sleeves of his sweater. “Brian had, uh. Other ideas.”

For a moment the only noise is the snip of the shears. Eliot tilts his head in the other direction, works around the other ear.

Nigel had other ideas too. Mostly they involved spending money and partying in a way Eliot hadn’t since he’d gotten the unpleasant, sobering––sort of literally––wake-up call of running a pre-industrial country whose drug options were a hotbox forest and atmospheric traces of opium. And then he’d very abruptly been Eliot again, and stuck in his own mind, and––

He rests his hands on the back of the chair, shaking too much to trust himself with the scissors and Quentin’s tender skin. He pulls a deep breath in through his nose. Breathes out. Lists the things around him. The chair under his trembling hands. The scissors reflecting the sunlight through the open window. In and out. The curving stairwell up to the second floor. The overlarge sectional in the living room, grey and soft. Quentin’s half-cut hair shifting around his face as he turns around to stare. In. He isn’t there. Out. He isn’t there.

“El?”

“I’m alright,” he says, and pulls in another breath. Forces his hands steady. Meets Quentin’s eyes. His brows are furrowed low. His hair hangs in his face where Eliot hasn’t gotten to it yet. He looks ridiculous. Eliot breathes. He’s alright.

“Is it––”

“Just,” Eliot says, and swallows. “Been a pretty terrible year, huh.”

Quentin stares at him, flat and stalled out, like he doesn’t know what to say to that, what to feel about it. Eliot immediately wishes he could take it back.

But Q huffs. It isn’t a laugh, but it’s somewhere near a laugh, like maybe with a little time and care and sunlight it could grow into laughter.

“Pretty fucking shitty,” he agrees with unusual levity, and straightens up again. The towel has come loose around his shoulders; Eliot fixes it for him, shakes his hands out and returns to his work. Takes care of the unfortunate bangs, attention flicking from his hair to his face, lines smoothed out, eyes closed as Eliot trims. He twitches as strands fall into his lap.

“Hold still,” Eliot murmurs, scissors held steady before his eyes, and Quentin stops moving. He runs his fingers through the top, checking the length. A little long. He moves around, sinks into an easy rhythm. It’s meditative, almost, fingers combing through Quentin’s hair, measuring, picking out each little imperfection until he’s happy. Quentin sits with his hands folded in his lap, hair dusting his shoulders. He doesn’t flinch against Eliot’s touch. Doesn’t do anything but show infinite patience, infinite trust, after all these things these hands have done to him. It chokes him, a little. He counters that by focusing on this task, on doing it right.

It’s short. Horribly short, leaves his ears and neck and face bare. It also looks good on him, Eliot decides, walking a slow circle to double check anything he may have missed. Makes him look older, which twists at his heart in its own way, and more assured. Or maybe that’s the way Quentin’s eyes follow him, steady. Some of the roiling anxiety has quieted. It's hard to hold his gaze.

“I’m going to clean up the back,” he says, a warning, and waits for Quentin’s shallow nod before he takes up the razor, fixing the fuzzy-short bits at the nape of his neck, around the curve of his ear. It buzzes blazing loud in the echoing hollow of the kitchen, and then it’s done. Eliot dusts away the fluff at the back of his neck, stands in front of Quentin and gives it one last combing with his fingers so it sweeps nearly above his forehead, tries not to feel so much or think so hard about the way Quentin sinks into his touch.

“I,” he declares, “am an artist.”

“Is it done?”

“Unless you want me to fix anything else. Go look.” He takes the towel, bundles it up to shake out later.

For a moment Quentin stays there, hands tucked in his sleeves, and then he slides off the chair and pads quietly towards the bathroom. Eliot fetches the broom and sets to sweeping up the downy dusting of hair on the ground. There’s so much of it. 

He pauses a moment, full dustpan in one hand and broom propped against the counter, and tugs at his own hair. It’s long now, longer than he’s ever worn it. Long enough to tie up, maybe. Should he cut it?

He finds, strangely, he doesn’t want to. The thought makes him smile, almost. He finishes cleaning.

It’s a long time before Quentin comes back from the bathroom, long enough that Eliot worries. Worries more, anyway, he always seems to be worrying these days. It’s exhausting. No wonder Quentin looks so tired all the time.

But he comes back, eventually, stands silently in the kitchen frowning, every line of his face on display beneath his new, short hair. What is he thinking? It’s impossible to tell. He hates it, maybe. Regrets it, more likely. 

“Q?” Eliot tries. Even that twinges. Q now, always, because Quentin is bad, because there is not one thing in their life the Monster did not grab hold of and break. The trick is living with the parts left over. Bridging the cracks.

But––

“I like it,” he says. He sounds surprised about that, confused almost. “It–– I really like it.”

“Well,” says Eliot, body fit strangely inside his skin; he feels a little like he wants to spill out of it. He should say something here, he thinks, and his mouth manages, distantly, “Of course you do. I’m a professional.”

Quentin is staring at him––at him, full-on, that way he does, constantly, despite everything. Eliot still doesn’t know if it is his bravery, staring at the face that hurt him again and again, or if he’s looking for something, proof Eliot is himself. He stands in the kitchen with his arms loose at his side and wonders if, maybe, it isn’t both.

Or, maybe he’s just staring at Eliot.

Maybe he has been staring all this time, and Eliot has been the one afraid to look back.

“Thank you,” Q says, and takes a swelling breath, air rushing out of him. “I really, um. Thanks.”

Eliot stares at him, feeling strange. “You’re welcome.”

“No, I mean. For everything. Things have been, um.”

“Pretty fucking shitty?” Eliot fills in, and Quentin actually smiles, eyes crinkling and dimples blooming and there’s nothing to hide it, and Eliot is too big for his own skin and bleeding something deep and terrible all over everything, and it’s so disorienting it takes him a minute to realize it’s relief.

“Yeah.”

Eliot swallows. “We’re trying.” I’m trying, he means, but that’s–– It’s folded up in there. Quentin will understand.

“Yeah.”

“We’ll get there?” It comes out too uncertain, and he doesn’t know where _there_ is exactly, but he means it. Or, hopes it anyway. He has to hope. Sooner or later the cracks have to close and they have to go on living, no matter how badly.

“I think we will.” And he’s still smiling sort of, a softer and sadder thing, equally lovely. Eliot does his best to tuck his heart and his relief back under his skin, steer the conversation somewhere not quite so bare and bruising.

“That length looks good on you,” he says. Quentin runs his fingers through it, self conscious, sort of. Not quite so awkward.

“It feels good. I feel lighter.”

Eliot’s response is cut short by a key in the lock, and the front door opening, and Julia stepping through, head buried in her phone, and then tilting up, and then flicking between them, and––

Quentin goes sheepish as her eyes widen.

“Quentin Makepeace Coldwater––”

“Jules––”

“––did you get your hair cut––”

“––it isn’t––”

“––_without_ me?”

“I didn’t–– It wasn’t–– I had to.”

Her expression doesn’t change, but she comes forward, runs her hand through it. Smiles, gently, just for him.

“It looks good, Q.” Her eyes slip sideways to Eliot, knowing, always so damn knowing. “It suits you.”

“Yeah,” Quentin says, and he’s looking at Eliot as well. “I think I really like it. It–– I feel lighter.”

And Eliot, well. He does too.

**Author's Note:**

> come say hi on [tumblr](http://impossibletruths.tumblr.com)


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